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I LiBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 

Chap. il..S..l.D...__.. 






UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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THE THEORY 



OP AN 



ANTIPODAL 
SOUTHERN CONTINENT 



DURING 



THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, 



.5< 






JAMES R. McCLYMONT, M.A. 



Extracted from the Report of the Fourth Meeting of the 
Australasian Associa'tion for the Advancement of Science. 



ECOB^IE^T, 189S. 



AUSTRALASIAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE 
ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, 

HoBART, Tasmania, 
JANUARY 8, 1892. 



PROCEEDINGS OF SECTIONS. 

Section E. 

THE INFLUENCE OF SPANISH AND POR- 
TUGUESE DISCOVERIES DURING THE 
FIRST TWENTY YEARS OF THE SIX- 
TEENTH CENTURY ON THE THEORY OF 
AN ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 



Co 



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in 2011 with funding from 
Tine Library of Congress 



littp://www.archive.org/details/tlieoryofantipodaOOmccl 



Section E. 

6.— THE INFLUENCE OF SPANISH AND PORTU- 
GUESE DISCOVERIES DURING THE FIRST 
TWENTY YEARS OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 
ON THE THEORY OF AN ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN 
CONTINENT. 

By JAMES R. M'CLYMONT, M.A. 

The possibility of an antipodal continent follows from the 
sphericity of the earth, which has been generally admitted 
by geographers since the time of Aristotle. The older theory 
of the Hellenic Greeks regarded the earth as a disc sur- 
rounded by Ocean and floating in the midst of the heavens. 
All the seas had outlets into the ocean. In the east the 
river Phasis united the Euxine with the ocean, in the west 
the strait of the Columns of Hercules similarly connected 
the Mediterranean with it. The diameter of the earth was 
of twenty days' journey. The true successors of this 
Homeric school were the monastic illuminators of the middle 
ages. Their Imagines Mundi i-epresent the earth as a 
wheel, the tire of which is the Homeric Ocean. It has three 
spokes, one of which is placed perpendicularly to the other 
two ; the horizontal spokes represent the waters which 
were supposed to divide Europe and Africa from Asia, 
namely, the Tanais or River Don, the Black Sea, the 
Hellespont, the easternmost portion of the Mediterranean, 
and the Nile ; the perpendicular spoke represents the 
remaining portion of the Mediterranean dividing Europe 
from Africa. The east, as the realm of Paradise, is placed 
at the summit of the wheel ; Jerusalem is the nave, for 
" operatus es salutem in medio terrae " (Ps. 74, 12). The 
antipodal continent finds no place in the typical Imago 
Mundi, or, if alluded to at all, it is only to dismiss it 
as a fable : " Extra tres autem partes orbis pars trans 
oceanum ulterior est qui solis ardore incognita nobis est cuius 
finibus antipodes fabuloso inhabitare produntur." {Orbis e 
codice taurinensi. Mappemonde dans un MS. qui contient urt 
commentaire de I' Apocalypse.) Atlas de Santarem. 

The first terrestrial globe, so far as we know, was con- 
structed about 150 B.C. by Crates of Mallus. Crates 



4 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 

divided the globe into four land segments, one of which 
represented all of the earth known to the ancients. The 
other three were conjectural. They were divided in one 
direction by an equatorial ocean, in the other by an ocean 
extending round the globe through the poles. The idea of 
Crates thus approaches the reality, with the exception of the 
equatorial ocean. It was perhaps based on the same sup- 
posed necessity of an equal distribution of land and water in 
order to maintain the equilibrium of the globe which 
influenced Mercator to postulate the existence of an antipodal 
continent. The device of Crates survives in the orb which 
forms one of the symbols of royalty at the coronation of our 
sovereigns. 

Another element in the conception of a Terra Australis 
was added by Marinus of Tyre and Ptolemy of Alexandria. 
Eratosthenes (226 B.C.) had made the eastern coast of the 
African continent terminate in about 12° N. at the Land of 
Cinnamon, whence it was supposed oriental spices were 
brought. Hipparchus (160 B.C.) prolonged the coast in- 
definitely towards the south. But Marinus (about 1 00 A.D.), 
perhaps basing his representation on misunderstood reports 
of Greek travellers, diverted the African coast towards the 
east at about 16° 30' S., and produced it to about the 
longitude of the Golden Chersonese, at which point he made 
it trend northwards to meet an extension of Asia, trending 
southwards immediately beyond the Magnus Sinus, or Gulf 
of Siam. The Indian Ocean thus became an inland sea. 
This scheme was not upset until the true form of Africa had 
been discovered, and even after that time it survived in 
many sixteenth-century maps in the eastern and isolated 
position which they gave to Zanzibar. 

The theory of Marinus was adopted by Ptolemy (about 
151 A.D.), whose great weight as an astronomer gave 
authority to all he promulgated. His astronomy, 17 avvra^ig 
fiiyurrr], was translated into Arabic in the caliphate of 
Mamun, 813-833, and was familiar to the Arabs under the 
name Almagest {al /ieytorjj). But their geographical science 
owes more to an anonymous work supposed to date from the 
eighth century and to be of Greek origin, supplemented by 
information supplied by the Arabs themselves. This is the 
jRasm al arsi, or description of the earth. We have not suffi- 
cient data to enable us to judge whether the author of this 
work accepted the Greek or the Ptolemsean scheme of the 
southern hemisphere. Later Arab geographers combined 



ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 6 

the two. The Tabula Rotunda in the Oxford MS. of Edrisi 
(1154) shows a round earth encircled by the Homeric Ocean 
and with the Ptoleniaean extension of Africa ; but the Indian 
Ocean is not surrounded by land, being connected with the 
outer Ocean towards the east at the fabulous country Uak- 
Uak, beyond the longitude of the Malay Peninsula. 

The voyages of Marco Polo, 1268-1295, and the enter- 
prises conducted under the patronage of Prince Henry of 
Portugal, 1418-1460, caused a revival of interest in the study 
of geography. The Geographia of Ptolemy was translated 
into Latin by Jacobo Angelo de Scarparia in 1409, and 
printed in 1475 at Vicenza, and in 1478 at Rome with 
illustrative maps designed by a certain Agathodaimon, who 
is said to have lived in the fifth century. From the time of 
its dissemhiation, from 1307 onwards, the Book of Marco 
Polo, dictated by that traveller when a prisoner in Genoa, 
had been the great work of reference on oriental geography 
as well as the favourite thesaurus of travel and adventure. 
It was originally edited in a somewhat barbarous French, 
by Rusticien de Pise, and from that edition, or from a revised 
version of it in purer French, several MS. translations were 
made into Italian and Latin in the course of the fourteenth 
century, and the work became widely known in the six- 
teenth century from the versions of Grynaeus (1532) and 
Ramusio (1556). The earliest cartographer who shows 
marks of Polo's influence is Martin I3ehaim (1492), and 
thenceforward Polo's travels, with more or less understanding 
of their author, enter into the composition of the world-maps 
of the sixteenth century. 

Polo, in his account of Java and Sumatra, adopts a 
phraseology of ancient date. Ptolemy applied the name 
'Ia/3aS<ou to three islands. The term is a Greek form of 
the Sanskrit " Yavadvipa " or Isle of Barley, which is found 
in ancient inscriptions in the island of Java, The name 
may have passed through Arabic into Greek, and been con- 
veyed by Greek travellers to Europe. The Sanskrit name 
of Sumatra was Prathama Yava, or the First Java, in 
allusion perhaps to its proximity to Asia. {Jour. R. Asiat. 
Soc, Bombay, 1861, App. Ixviii.) The Arab geographers 
also recognised more than one Java, and Ibn Batuta men- 
tions one island " Jawah " and another " Mul-Jawah," or, 
" the original Java." As he calls the capital of a Mahometan 
State in the former island " Somothra," it is probable that his 
Jawah was the island now called Sumatra, and his MuU 



6 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 

Jawah our modern Java. Polo describes one of the king- 
doms of Javva la meneur under the name " Samara," but 
the name Sumatra as applied to the entire island does not 
appear on any European map with which I am acquainted 
until the year 1459, when Fra Mauro so denominates it 
on his Mappa Mundi. Fra Mauro's two Giavas, Giava 
maggiore and Giava menore, lie to the east of Asia, and the 
former seems to be identical with Cimpangu, or Japan, 

In Polo's and in Varthema's times Java was regarded as 
an island of much greater extent than it really is. Marco 
Polo was informed that it was the largest island in the 
world, and gives its circumference as five thousand miles 
{Le Livre de Marc Pol, ed. Panthier, cap. clxii.), and that 
of Javva la meneur as two thousand. The companions of 
Varthema wished him to go and see "the largest island in 
the w~orld," and having called at Bornei they took their way 
to the island called Giava. (Varthema, ed. Hakl. Soc, pp. 
247-8.) In later times Java Minor was regarded as an 
island distinct both from Java and Sumatra. Thus Pigafetta 
(1522) says that at half a league from Java Major is the 
island of Bali, called also Java Minor. Another writer, 
Manoel Godinho de Heredia, who cites Polo, Varthema, 
Battista Agnese (1650?) and Petrus Plaucius (1598), places 
Java Minor in a new position altogether. Having described 
Sumatra, and Java under the name of Java Maior, and pre- 
viously to describing Borneo, he mentions a Java Menor, 
and under that name describes the Javva la meneur of Polo. 
But his Java Menor is not in the position of Polo's Javva la 
meneur, but is in the Mar Austral in 24° S. lat. Its people 
possess many spices never seen in Europe, and are so 
ferocious that the inhabitants of the neighbouring islands 
hold no intercourse with them. {Informacao verdadeira da 
aurea Chersoneso, Lisboa, 1807, p. 116.) The 163rd chapter 
of the Book of Marco Polo commences with the words 
" Quant on se part de Javva et on nage vii. c. milles contre 
midi adonc treuve fen deux isles, I'une grant, et I'autre 
meneur. L'une a nom Sandur et I'autre Condur." Com- 
mentators until recently were unable to identify these islands, 
as well as the countries of Locach and Maliur and the island 
of Pontain and other places, the position of which depended 
on the direction to be taken from Java to Sandur and 
Condur. At last Marsden solved the difficulty by pointing 
out that if " Cyamba " were read in place of *' Javva " and 
the loutherly oours@ for 700 mile^ wer^ followed from 



ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 7 

Cyamba, Condur or Pulo Condor would fall into its right 
position, Sandur would correspond with the Two Brothers, 
Locacli with Lo-Kok, an ancient name for the lower part of 
the modern Siam, Pontain with Bintang, and Mahur with 
the Land of the Malays — the Malay Peninsula. But this 
emendation had not been thought of in the time of Mercator, 
who, in his desire to record all known discoveries, placed 
Sandur and Condur, Locach and Maliur where the MSS. of 
Marco Polo's travels indicated them, namely, to the south of 
Java, on or near a northern extension of the Terra Australis. 
Java Major on Mercator's map of the world of 1569 cor- 
rectly represents the modern Java ; Java Minor is an 
imaginary island situated in a gulf of the Terra Australis. 

The next influence on the development of the conception 
of a 7Wi'a Australis was that exercised by the oceanic dis- 
coveries of the Spanish and Portuguese in South America 
in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth 
centuries. The necessity of discovering ocean routes to the 
east was the outcome of the aggressive attitude of the 
Turks and of the internecine rivalry of the maritime re- 
publics of Italy. As early as 1285 Genoa had sent out an 
expedition under the leadership of Tedisio Doria and 
Ugolino di Vivaldo for the purpose of discovering a path to 
the Indies by way of the south of Africa. The expedition 
never returned. 

For nearly two centuries the more enterprising amongst 
the European nations of that period, by means of treaties 
with the Turks or of alliances with the Mongols, attempted 
to retain an interest in oriental trade. By the former means 
the Genoese retained their depots in the Crimea for mer- 
cliandise coming from the east by the overland route through 
Turkestan, and the French and Venetians came to an 
understanding with the Sultan of Egypt regarding the navi- 
gation of the Red Sea. Syria, under the power of the 
Crusaders, had become another mart for the oriental produc- 
tions which came by the way of the Euphrates Valley, and 
the Venetians occupied a quarter in Ptolemais, and the 
Pisans one in Antioch, whilst the Genoese had counting- 
houses in Jerusalem, Joppa, and Casarea. 

The inability of the European nations to support the 
Crusaders in their conquest necessitated the withdrawal of 
those merchants from Syria. The Genoese were compelled 
to retire in 1474 from the Crimea, whilst the Venetians so 
jealously conserved tl^eir rights in the route by the Hed ^ee^ 



8 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 

that other maritime nations had either to fall back upon the 
Genoese attempt of 1285, or strike out some entirely new 
enterprise in order to reach the east. The Portuguese did 
the former, and reached the east by the Cape of Good Hope 
in 1497, after a long series of fruitless efforts. The 
Spaniards did the latter, and in the attempt chanced to fall 
in with America on the way. The vast extension which 
Marco Polo's travels had given to Asia towards the east 
helped to implant in the mind of Columbus the idea of 
reaching it by sailing to the west, and the new world of 
Cohimbus was never more to him than the easternmost por- 
tion of the old. The subsequent discoveries of the Spaniards 
and Portuguese altered many of the Ptolemaean ideas about 
the configuration of the southern hemisphere. It was now 
seen that there was no eastward extension of the African 
continent ; the Indian Ocean was not a mare clausum ; Asia 
did not unite with an extended Africa ; Ceylon was not of 
equal extent with the Indian Peninsula; Taprobana was 
removed from Ceylon to Sumatra; Catigara from the 
imaginary Southern Asia to Cape Comorin, and thence to 
unexplored Southern America. 

Columbus and Bartholomew Diaz were the precursors of 
a host of Spanish and Portuguese discoverers. These nations 
were strong enough to keep the other maritime powers in 
check, and France in the early part of the sixteenth century 
had to content herself with stealthy expeditions undertaken 
by private individuals or syndicates, whilst England shortly 
began to play the part of the bold buccaneer. All charts 
and sailing directions were carefully conserved, and only 
general descriptive narratives were allowed to circulate out- 
side of Spain or Portugal. " Manuel, King of Portugal," 
says Lelewel, "in his letter of 29th July, 1501, informed 
Ferdinand of the discovery of Brazil by Cabral, but he 
secreted all the nautical charts ; they were deposited in the 
record office of the Admiralty, and could not be removed 
from the kingdom. All publicity was given to the glory 
and renown of the state and its navigators. Narratives of 
the voyages were scattered abroad in brochures and fly- 
leaves. People found in these the adventures of the 
trarellers and everything that could astonish their minds, but 
they could find nothing there that would enable them to 
determine geographical positions with certainty. Charts 
were drawn which gave a [licture of the discoveries, but they 
were destitute qf eyery indication, which could instruct 



ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 9 

mariners regarding the dangers or the direction of the 
voyages.'' {Geograpliie dn A'loyen Age, ii., pp. 141-142.) 
The same remarks hold good of the poUcy of Spain, and 
only a few original records of her discoveries give details 
which could assist the curious to follow in the tracks of the 
discoverers. 

Of such the best known instance is the account of the 
voyages of Vespucci. Two of these performed in the service 
of Spain and two in the service of Portugal were narrated 
by that voyager in a letter written, as appears from internal 
evidence, to Pier Soderini, the Gonfaloniere of Florence, and 
printed without a date, but probably in Florence in 1505, 
This epistle received widespread attention through being 
translated into Latin as an appendix to the popular Cosino- 
grnphicB Introductio, St. Die, 1507. Humboldt and Varn- 
hagen have done much to elncidate these voyages of 
Vespucci, and to restore the honour justly due to his name, 
but even they have been misled by their anxiety to identify 
too closely the landfalls and terminal points of his voyages, 
and have in several cases altered his plain statements of the 
latitudes observed. It is not to be wondered at, then, that 
the Spanish alguazil and author Enciso, writing in 1519 
about a voyage performed in the service of Portugal, should 
have misunderstood its scope, Enciso is not reliable in 
matters beyond his personal cognisance, as Varnhagen has 
pointed out. {Vespuce et son premier Voyage, Paris, 1858, 
p. 25.) I'he former speaks thus vaguely of a discovery of 
land in 42° S. : " This Cape of Good Hope has to the west 
the land called austral ; from the Cape of Good Hope to the 
" tierra austral " the distance is 450 leagues ; it is in 42° ; it 
is 600 leagues from Cape St, Augustine ; it is S.E. \ S. 
from Cape St. Augustine. Nothing is known of this land 
except what has been seen from ships, for no one has landed 
on it," {Suma de Geographiu, Seville, 1519, fol. liv., verso.) 
Mercator, quoting this passage of Enciso, places a Promon- 
torium Terrce Aiistralis on his Magna Orbis Descriptio, 
1569, in 42° S. and about 15° of Boavista, and this cape 
cape came to be regarded by some geographers as an un- 
assailably correct position. Jean Paulmier thus sj)Oa;v^ nf \i 
in . his Mhnoires toucliant CEstahlissement d'u7ie Mission 
ckrestienne, p. 9. I think there can be little doubt that 
Enciso had heard but an imperfect account of Vespucci's 
third voyage performed in the service of Portugal, and that 
he raisplaced the land seen from the ships on the 7th of 



10 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 

April, 1502, and generall}^ identified with the island of South 
Georgia. {Lettera, p. 28.) The mistake might have arisen 
through misunderstanding Vespucci's statement tliat he 
coasted 600 leagues from Cape St. Augustine, and in sup- 
posing that that distance was to be taken in a direct line ; 
which, adding 600 leagues to 8" — the latitude of C. St. 
Augustine — would have brought the ships to about 42° S. 
Further, Enciso or his informant seems to have supposed 
that at this point was the land which was sighted from the 
ships. Desbrosses somewhat more accurately says : " The 
Austral coast discovered by Amerigo Vespucci is to be found 
marked on the maps nearly at the intersection of the 52nd 
parallel with the first meridian." {Histoire, i., p. 100.) The 
map of Vaugondy, however, pubhshed in the work of 
Desbrosses, adheres to the older indication of Enciso, and 
places the Cap des Terres Australes in 42° S. The error 
of Enciso is of interest as the earliest transference of an 
actual discovery from its proper position to the coast of the 
legendary Terra Australis. 

The next instance of a similar kind occurs in the Novus 
Orbis, published in Basle in the year 1532. That work 
contains a Latin translation of a letter from Lorenzo Cretico, 
Ambassador of the Venetian Republic at the Court of 
Portugal, beginning with the words " Serenissime Princeps," 
and addressed probably to the Doge. It is dated June 27, 
1601, but seems not to have been published until 1507, when 
it appears in the Paesi novamevte retrouati. The letter gives 
an account of the expedition of Cabral to Calicut, in which 
Brazil was discovered on the 22nd of April 1500, and a 
passage in it is to the effect that the ships discovered a new 
country on their way, and lying to the south-west, before reach- 
ing the Cape of Good Hope, — " di sopra dal capo d Boa- 
speraza uerso garbi hano scopto una terra noua la chiamao d 
li Papaga." Further, that they called it the Land of 
Parrots, because these birds there exceeded a cubit and a 
half in length, and were of various colours ; that the writer 
had seen two of them ; the sailors believed that this coast 
was that of a continent, because they sailed along it for two 
thousand miles without reaching the end of it ; it was 
inhabited by naked and well-made men. The translator of 
this letter for the iVou2/s Orhis has rendered "uerso garbi" 
by "lebegio vecti vento," making it to appear that Cabral 
was driven on this new coast by a south-west wind; and 
Oronce Fin^, whose map of the world of 1631 accompanies 



ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 11 

the Basle edition of the Novus Orbis, 1532, j)lacesa Brasielie 
Regio as part of the Term Australis, reaching nearly to the 
tropic of Capricorn, whilst more to the east is a Regio 
Patalis, a word supposed by Santarem to be derived from the 
Sanskrit, and to mean the nether region. The occurrence 
of the inscription " Mare magellanicum " on Fine's map 
shows that he was in part influenced by the voyage of 
Magellan in his delineation of the Terra Australis. Mercator 
followed the incorrect indication given in the Novus Orbis, 
and charted the Psittacorum Regio in about 42"* S., and 
with a longitudinal extension from 30" to 70° E. of Bona- 
vista. This tract bears the inscription " Psittacorum Regio 
sic a Lusitanis hue libegio vento appulsis cum Callicutum 
peterent appellata propter earum avium multitudinem. Porro 
cum hujus terrse littus ad 2000 miharum prosequuti essent 
necdum tamen finem invenorunt inde Australem continentera 
attigisse indubitatum est." 

It was probably due in the main to the personal character 
and ambition of Charles VIII. and Louis XII. that France 
expended her energies so exclusively in feudal wars at the 
period of the great oceanic discoveries. With the accession 
of Francis I. and the regency of Louisa of Savoy com- 
mences an awakening of interest in these discoveries, which 
eventually resulted in active participation. In 1516 the 
Paesi no}iame7ite retroiiati appeared in a French translation. 
In 1623 or 1524 Pigafetta presented to the Regent a copy 
of his book, that namely which described the voyage of 
Magellan, and a French abridgment of the work by Jacques 
Fabre appeared shortly afterwards at the Regent's request. 
In 1532 Peter Martyr's first three decades were abridged 
and published in French, with a dedication to Charles Due 
d'Angouleme, a son of Francis I. ; and abridgments of the 
fourth decade and of the second and third letter of Cortes 
were dedicated to another child of Francis I., the Princess 
Marguerite (the Colines Receuil.) At this time there existed 
schools of hydrography at Dieppe and Arques, which were 
patronised by the royal family. A member of the latter, 
Pierre Desceliers, executed a map of the world in 1546 at 
the order of Henry II., which is reproduced in llic Atlas 
of Jomard, No. AXI. The same hydrographer produced 
another mapperaonde, bearing the arms of France and 
Dauphiny, and supposed to be of earlier date than the last- 
named. It is preserved in the British Museum, and cata- 
logued Add, MS, 5413. This chart is sometii^es called the 



12 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 

Dauphin Map, at other times, from its having belonged to 
Edward Harley, Earl of Oxford, the Harleyan Map, and as 
the map of 1546 is also known as tlie Dauphin Map, the 
other designation is probably the better of the two. 

Desceliers and his fellow-hydrographers appear to have 
had access to some of the pictorial charts of the Spaniards 
or Portuguese to which Leiewel alludes. An extensive 
portion of their southern hemisphere is occupied by hydro- 
graphic outlines of a continent which in some instances is 
represented as united with the Terra Ausiralis, in others is 
made separate from it, and to which the name Jave la 
Grande or Java Maior is applied. Its northern outlines are 
in part co-terminous with those of Java, in part with those of 
other islands of the Malayan Archipelago. This appears 
from the names with which that portion of the coast is 
studded. But on closer examination one finds that the 
entire outlines of Java, of certain Malaysian islands, and of 
Java Major, correspond with ihe outhnes of Central and 
South America from the Gulf of Honduras to about 23^ S. 
or, in some of the maps (Desceliers, 1550, Desliens, 1566) 
to the vicinity of La Plata. In order to rectify the 
bearing of the coast-hnes it is necessary to invert them, 
which can be simply done by placing the chart before a 
mirror. The inverted outlines should be compared with an 
early map of America, such as that of Juan de la Cosa. 
There are indeed some sti'iking points of resemblance 
between these charts and the map of De la Cosa. De la 
Cosa represents two large islands and some small ones 
off Cape St. Augustine ; the French charts have one 
large island and some small ones in the same position. 
These islands may represent the discovery of Cabral, who at 
first regarded Monte Pascoal as part of an island. {Geo. 
du Moyen Age, ii., p. 110.) Another point of resemblance 
is in the delineation of the m oaths of the Tocantins and 
Amazon and the island Marajo. In both cases that island is 
represented as a peninsula between two gulfs, and the two 
coast-lines at this point are strikingly similar. Again, in De 
la Cosa's map the river which disembogues a little to the 
south of Cape St. Roque is produced so as almost to cut off" 
the north-eastern corner of Brazil ; in the French maps it 
cuts it off" completely. 

I will now point out some details which I think will be 
held sufficient to establish the identity between Jave la 
Grande and the American coasts I. have mentioned, The 



ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 13 

bay marked " Baye Perdue" has to the N.W. of it a small 
island marked "Ye de S. Xtofer," or Island of St. Chris- 
topher (commonly known as St. Kitts), and the bay itself 
corresponds with the description given by Vespucci of " a 
very fine port, which was formed by a large island that was 
situated at the mouth, inside of which there was a bay, very 
deeply indented " {Lettera, p. 18 ; in this bay he anchored in 
his second voyage, in the summer of 1 499. The desci-iption 
applies either to the Gulf of Paria or to the mouth of the 
Orinoco ; and that Baye Perdue is intended for one of these 
places is evident from its position relatively to St. Kitts. If 
" Perdue " is a translation of the Spanish " Perdita," the 
name may have been given it after the loss of two of the 
ships of Vincente Pinzon in that neighbourhood in the year 
1500. The islands off the coast to the west of Baye Perdue 
represent very fairly the Leeward Islands, and one might 
without difficulty pick out Margarita, Tortuga, and Curagoa; 
whilst some of the headlands are probably represented as 
islands. The Gulf of Venezuela is not drawn as such, but, 
at the place where we should expect to find it, are several 
islands representing the peninsulas of Paraguana and La 
Guajira. We may conclude that the pilot who drew the 
original chart (like the pilot who drew the original charts 
from which the Hydrographia of 1513 was constructed) 
sailed past the entrance of this gulf without detecting it. 
Another West Indian island serves as an index to this part 
of the coast, under the name " Ye de Lucayos." This name 
appears on De la Cosa's map in the singular, " Lucayo," 
apparently as the equivalent of Guanahani, and it is else- 
where used in the plural of the Bahamas generally. The 
coast then trends S.W. into the Gulf of Darien ; and on 
this part appears on^ the chart of Desliens the word 
" forillons," an adaptation of the Spanish " farallones," or 
reefs above water. The " Farallones " of the Gulf of Darien 
are referred to by Galvano (Hakluyt Soc. Ed., p. 99), who 
speaks of them as being sighted by Rodrigo Bastidas in his 
voyage of the year 1503, but mentions them as if well known 
prior to that time. 

At the extremity of the Gulf of Darien the coast-line 
of the MS. charts ceases to correspond with the actual coast. 
The explanation, I think, is to be found in supposing that 
the navigator who drew the chart left the coast at this point, 
crossed the mouth of the Mosquito Gulf, and resumed his 
hydrographical labours where he again sighted the coast — 



14 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION £. 

that of Nicaragua, — some distance to the south of C. 
Gracias a Dios. At this point another of the West Indian 
Islands assists our identification, N.N.E. from the promon- 
tory which we have supposed to be C. Gracias a Dios — 
" C. da fremosa " on the Harleyan Map — Res the island of 
Jamaica, "Ysla" er ^'Jamaqua." Its true position would 
be N.E., but it is accurately enough placed relatively to 
" C. da fremosa " to indicate that the cape is C. Gracias a Dios 
and not P. Manzanilla nor C. Catoche, the only other capes 
with which one might attempt to identify it. As for the 
spelling of Jamaica, that varies much in old maps and 
treatises. The Hydrographia has " Jamaiqua," Galvano 
writes it " Zamayca." From this point the orientation is 
entirely false, for the coast, instead of being produced nearly 
due west, slopes off to the S.W. and produces the impression 
of a coast-line accurately enough depicted as to hydro- 
graphical features, but so depicted by a mariner without a 
compass. 

Let us now return to the point whence we started, and 
proceed southwards. South of the N.E. corner of the map 
is a river with the much-abbreviated legend, " R. de St. 
Po ; " perhaps San Pedro, for in the Mappemonde peinte par 
ordre de Henri JI., it is translated St, Pierre ; its position 
accords with that of the Rio San Francisco. Then we have 
an unnamed bay, and the outlet of a river marked "R. 
Grande," answering to Bahia dos Todos Santos and the R. 
Paragua§u or " great water," of which Rio Grande might be 
a translation. Desceliers delineates a channel from this bay 
to the mouth of the Tocantins, and thus converts the N.E. 
corner of South America into an island. No such separa- 
tion, however, occurs on the Mappemonde of Desliens, 
which is otherwise similar to the Harleyan Map ; perhaps 
Desceliers has taken a liberty with his original, in order 
to reconcile his idea of the identity of the north-western 
portion of the chart with the island of Java, a circumstance 
to which I shall again refer. The next bay, marked " Baye 
bresill," is probably the " porto seguro " of Cabral. The 
name Brazil, which is stated to have been bestowed by 
French sailors, was very soon adopted by the Portuguese, 
for we find a " Rio Brazil " in the Hydrographia in a posi- 
tion coinciding with this " Baye bresill." The undue 
extension given to the harbours of this coast is a noticeable 
feature ; and although one might reasonably expect that the 
ports in which ships anchored would be shown more in detail 



ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT, 1 

than places which were merely sailed past, I think this 
consideration alone is hardly sufficient to account for the 
exaggeration, but that this southern portion is the work of a 
less skilled draughtsman than the northern — of one who had 
not sufficient knowledge of cartography to reduce his plans 
of the harbours to their proper relative proportions on a chart 
of the entire coast. 

The indications for the guidance of manners which occur 
at various points of the coast sufficiently attest the hydro- 
graphic character of the original charts ; and the illustrations 
are an evident addition of the copyist, and are as charac- 
teristic of the systematic medieeval map of the world as the 
nautical information is cliaracteristic of the pilot's chart. 
Amongst these nautical indications are " terre unnegeade," 
submerged land (Desceliers, 1546) ; " ap quieta," perhaps, a 
a calm place {Idem) ; " Roches," rocks, (1546, 1550) ; 
" Arenes," sands, (1550) ; " Ansses," cores, (1546). One can 
only guess at the meaning of some of the inscriptions to the 
south of " Baye bresill." '• B. de gao " may be a corruption 
of " agoada," watering-place ; " C. de St. drao " of " Cabo 
do san padrao," Cape of the Holy Cross, (Harleyan Map). 
The last, if such be the interpretation of it, either marks the 
spot where a Padrao was set up, or is the vulgarisation of the 
" Caput Sancte Crucis " of the Hydroyraphia and the map 
of Buysch — a general rather than a specific appellation, 
coinciding with the name of the country, Terra Sanctae Crucis. 
The next noticeable name is that of the deep harbour marked 
" Harae " or " Havre des Yles," for so I conceive we must 
read " Hame de Sylla," the copyist converting the words 
" de las Ylhas" into " de Sylla." Probably the legend "ye 
de Saill" is a corruption of the same sort. This harbour of 
islands corresponds to Rio de Janeiro, a little to the south of 
which the coast-line in the Harleyan Map ceases to present 
any distinct geographical features. On a map of 1550, how- 
ever, the features are still depicted, and the last to be observed 
is the " Baye des Rivieres," in the position of Rio Grande or 
Sao Piedro do Sul. 

An acquaintance with these charts of America was not 
confined to the French school of cartography, for the same 
outhnes are to be found in a map by Cornells de Jode, 
entitled Hemispheriu ah aequinoctiali linea ad circulu poli 
atarctici, published in his Speculum Orbis, Antwerp, 1593. 
Ue Jode's adaptation differs in several striking particulars 
from that of the French. The adapted American outlines 



16 PROCEfiBINGS OF SECTION E. 

of De Jode occupy a similar position in his scheme of the 
globe to the same outlines in the scheme of the Dieppe 
school. They bear the name Ter. australis incognita. There 
is no dividing strait corresponding to that which divides 
Jave la Grande from Java; Java niaior is in its proper 
place as the island of Java ; the other islands of the Archi- 
pelago vv^hich the French school unites with Jave la Grande 
are not so united by De Jode, but are located elsewhere ; 
and the eastern coast is produced further to the south than 
in any of the French MS. charts, and terminates with the 
inscription " Estrecho de Magellanes." The most remark- 
able difference, however, is that De Jode's outhnes are not 
inverted, but are turned round an angle of 45°, so that the 
north coast of South America becomes the west coast of the 
Ter. australis incognita. Moreover, the country is not 
hydrographically outlined, but is delineated so as to har- 
monise with the continental character of the atlas. Its 
name and description are engraved on the so-called Ter. 
australis incognita, as follows : — " Maxima et admiranda 
insula occidentalis America, nunc quarta pars orbis nominata : 
ditissima fertiUssimaq ; omniu reru ad vita necessariaru. 
Veteribus philosophis, cosmographis, et potentissimis Monarchis 
ignota et primu imperante Carolo V. perlustrata. In his 
peninsulis et isthmo, sunt maxim e temporu et reru varia- 
tiones : quonia subiacent incoli 4 zonis, una frigida est, altera 
torrida, tertia et quarta temperata." I think we find in this 
inscription a confirmation of the opinion, tenable on other 
grounds, that the original charts were Spanish, as the Por- 
tuguese receive no share of the honour of the discovery of 
America. The legend bears internal evidence of the in- 
fluence of Johann Schoener, who, in his Luculentissima 
quueda terrae totius desc7'iptio (Norimhergae, 1515), describes 
the IVew World under the name " America," and speaks of 
it as " quarta orbis pars," and " insula mirae magnitudinis " — 
an opinion which he subsequently renounced in favour of the 
theory that America was united to Asia, citing, strangely 
enough, the discoveries of Magellan as a proof: — " Modo 
vero per novissimas navigationes factas anno 1519, per 
Magellanum versus Moluccas insulas in supremo oriente 
positas eam teiTam invenerunt continentem superioris Indiae 
quae pars est Asiae." (Opusculum Geographicum, Norim- 
bergae, 1533, ii., 1 and 20.) 

The " America " of De Jode bears few inscriptions, but 
some of them are significant ; such as " R. S. Augustin," 



ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 17 

nearly in the position of the cape of that name, and corre- 
sponding to the Rio S. Augustino of the Hydrographia ; and 
in the extreme south, " Estrecho de Magellanes." This 
record of Magellan's voyage proves that the original of 
this map of De Jode was compiled not earher than 1522, 
and the facts just mentioned regarding the opinions of 
Schoener seem to indicate a German, perhaps Schoener 
himself, as its compositor. An account of Magellan's voyage 
reduced from Pigafetta's relation to the Emperor was sent 
by Maximilian of Transylvania to Cardinal Lang, Arch- 
bishop of Salzburg, then attending the Reichstag in Niirnberg, 
in November, 1522; and the map or maps from which the 
one we are considering was derived may have accompanied 
and illustrated Maximilian's letter, and been handed over 
to the learned Schoener for his inspection and use, accom- 
panied by the necessary directions which would enable him 
to rectify the bearings. 

In his address, " Inspectori" (1569), Mercator tells us that 
for the purpose of delineating with exactitude the various 
countries, he compared the nautical charts of the Spaniards 
and Portuguese one with another, and also with most of the 
printed and manuscript accounts of the voyages. Ortelius 
acted as collector of materials, Mercator as elaborator, 
and the former in his travels through the Netherlands, 
Germany, Italy, and Great Britain, probably procured the 
charts to which Mercator refers, including those used in 
his construction of the Terra Australis. Gerard de Jode, 
the father of Cornelis, worked at one time in company with 
Ortelius, and may have had access to his collection, for there 
was an excellent understanding between the various members 
of the Antwerp school. It is not so easy to conjecture how 
the Spanish charts passed into the possession of French 
cartographers : certainly in a different manner, since they 
appear in so different a guise. When Pigafetta visited 
France after his return from the circumnavigation of the 
globe, Giovanni Vespucci, nephew of Amerigo, held the 
position of Piloto-Maior, and as such would be custodian of 
the original charts. He seems to have been lax in his duties, 
for he is said to have published a map of America in 1524, 
for which action he was dismissed from office. Further, he 
inherited all his uncle's charts and papers. From him 
Pigafetta may have improperly obtained copies of American 
charts, and conveyed them with him to France. Maximilianus 
Transylvanus may have done the same, and sent copies to 



18 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 

the Cardinal Archbishop of Salzburg. The coasts delineated 
in the Harleyan Map correspond very closely with the coasts 
visited by Vespucci in his second and third voyages, but we 
have adduced reasons for believing that the southern portion, 
at least, was the work of a less skilled hydrographer than 
Vespucci. Not a few pilots were employed, first by the 
Portuguese, then by the Spaniards, or vice versa, and 
some of them even returned from their second masters to 
their first : this greatly complicates the problem of the 
nationality of the original explorer. 

I have noted one or two points of resemblance between 
the French MS. charts and that of Juan de la Cosa ; 
and that pilot may have been the author of the northern 
portion of the chart, from the vicinity of Cape St. 
Roque westwards. The West Indian Islands included in 
the chart may have been touched at in the outward or home- 
ward voyage of the hydrographer, and were well known to 
Juan de la Cosa from his connection with Columbus. In 
Alonzo d'Hojeda's voyage with De la Cosa as his pilot, from 
May, 1499 to June, 1500, the ship of the commander was 
wrecked, and d'Hojeda reached San Domingo in a small 
boat on the 5th September, 1499. As the outward voyage 
from Cadiz to the American coast only occupied 42 days, it 
is possible that d'Hojeda may have reached the Bay of 
Honduras, been there wrecked, and afterwards reached San 
Domingo, all between 27tli June and 5th September. If 
the portion of the chart in question does emanate from 
De la Cosa the shipwreck (and probable loss of compass) might 
account for the inaccuracy in the direction given to the coast 
of Honduras. 

The illustrations with which the Dauphin and the other 
MS. maps are enriched are an addition of the colourist ; for 
such illustrations are never present in simple hydrographic 
charts. Moreover the illustrations in some of them, as in 
that of Desceliers of 1 550, do not in all cases refer to the 
countries where they occur, but to quite other parts of the 
world. It is very doubtful whether the illustrations were 
copied from original drawings at all ; those of Descehers 
(1550), for example, are mere figments of the artist's brain 
based upon the tales of travellers. Such are the group of 
dog-headed beings representing the inhabitants of Angania 
or the Andaman Islands, according with the account of 
Marco Polo (ed. Panthier, cap. clxvii.) ; whilst the group of 
sun and ox worshippers represents the cults ascribed to the 



ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 19 

Javanese by Varthema (Travels, Hakluyt Soc, 1863, pp. 
251-2). The illustrations of the Harleyan Map are suf- 
ciently real to be based u])on the descriptions by Vespucci 
and Pigafetta of what they saw in Central and South 
America. Vespucci mentions pigs and deer among;st the 
animals he saw in his first voyage {Lettera delle isole, 
p. 14) ; the natives are said to be naked and to deprive their 
bodies of all hair except that on the head ; they carried bows 
and arrows, clubs and spears, hardened in the fire (p, 5); 
tiiey had their meat in earthen basins or in the halves of 
pumpkins (p. 6), which are represented in two places on the 
Jave la Grande of the Harleyan Map ; their houses vvere 
made like huts or cabins (capanne) of very large trees 
covered with palm-leaves, and in some places of so great 
length and breadth that in one single house dwelt six 
hundred persons (p. 7), In the second voyage, Vespucci 
observed on the island supposed to be Margarita, that the 
inhabitants dwelt underneath arbours, which protected them 
from the sun but not from the rain (p. 21) — a rude shelter 
such as is depicted on the Harleyan Map, which also 
represents the palm-trees. In his description of the country 
and inhabitants of Verzin or Brazil, Pigafetta accords with 
Vespucci in certain particulars. They have (pigs which have 
their navel on the back) (Voyage of AJagelkm, Hakluyt Soc, 
p. 46) ; the men wear no beard, because they pluck it out 
(p. 45) ; their dwellings are long houses, in each of which 
there dwells a hundred persons (p. 44). The Patagonians 
who were encountered in Port S. Julian had low huts or 
tents made of the skins of the guanaco and removed their 
huts from place to place. These huts may be intended by 
the conical structures of Desceliers. The object most 
characteristic of South America is the guanaco, for such 
seems to be intended by the camel-Uke animal that appears 
on some of these maps. As drawn by Desceliers in 1550 
it is very much of a monster, and might well have been 
conceived after the description of Pigafetta : — " This beast 
has the head and ears of the size of a mule, and the neck 
and body of the fashion of a camel, the legs of a deer and the 
tail hke that of a horse, and it neighs like a horse." {Voyage 
of Magellan, p. 50.) And further on Piggafetta relates 
that the natives tamed this animal and led it with a cord, as 
we find represented by Desceliers. The juxtaposition of 
these South American subjects with the outlines of South 
America may be fortuitous. Jave la Grande offered ample 



20 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 

scope for the purpose of illustrations, and may have been 
merely selected as a convenient blank space in which to 
place them, their appropriate position being more or less 
conjectural. At the same time our suggestion about Piga- 
fetta's possible share in the dissemination of these charts is 
upheld by the agreement between his written descriptions 
and the illuminations on the Harleyan Map. 

The dates of the mappemondes of Desliens, 1566, and of 
Jean Cossin, 1570, overlap that of Gerardus Merca tor's Nova 
et aucta terrae descriptio, the engraving of wliich was finished 
at Duisburg in August, 1569. The distinguishing feature in 
this map was the new projection devised by the engraver, 
which develops the degrees of latitude in a ratio pro- 
portional with the increase in the degrees of longitude. 
Mercator himself said that his projection lacked mathematical 
justification, but that it was the only method by which the 
sphere could be reduced to a plane projection, and that it 
would be convenient for navigators. The navigators, how- 
ever, were slow to avail themselves of new and untried 
methods, and despised a map which displayed coasts that 
were unknown to them, and which subordinated nautical 
details to a theoretical tout ensemble. Mercator had very 
clear and definite views on the subject of a southern con- 
tinent. His biographer, Gualterus Gymniis, says that 
he divided the world into three continents, one of which 
consisted of Asia, Africa, and Europe, the other was 
India No^ a or Occidentalis, or America, and of the third, 
although he was n(»t ignorant of the fact that it was still 
unknown, yet he affirmed that he could demonstrate the 
existence by solid reasons, and that it was not inferior to the 
other two in size and weight, for, if it were, the globe could 
not remain stable with respect to its equilibrium. (Gymniis, 
Vita Mercatoris.) If we tura to the map of 1569 for the 
representation of this theory, (traceable also in his world- 
map of 1538) we find the whole Southern Ocean awanting 
and its place approximately occupied by a southern con- 
tinent. Beginning from the Terra del Fuego, which is 
made a part of it, the Terra Australis extends in a north- 
westerly direction towards New Guinea, with which it forms 
a strait, then trends S.W., W., and N., so forming a gulf 
in which lie the islands of Java Minor and Petan, followed 
by a promontory inscribed with the names Maletur, Lucach, 
and Beachj a corrupted form of Lucach. I have explained 
how these names, occurring in the Book of Marcq Polo, were 



ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 21 

erroiiponsly placed to the south of Java, But the proinou- 
tary on which they occur, the adjacent L','ulf to the east of it, 
aud the coast-hne thence to the Straits of Magellan, siiow 
another influence — the same influence that produced the Java 
Maior of the Dieppe school of hydrog-raphy. To the west 
of tlie northern promontory is another gulf. Then follows 
the Terra Psittncorum, lying nearly due east and west in 
about 44° S. ; then the Promontor'ium Terrce Australis of 
Eneiso in 42° S. and 15'^ E, from Boavista. From this 
cape the coast-line trends southwards to rejoin the Terra del 
Fuego. 

An element unknown to the French cartographers occurs in 
this conception, namely, Tierra del Fuego, and its conjuuctioii 
with the Terra Auxtrahs. There was an old theory that 
a strait divided the continent of South America and con- 
nected the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and when De Solis 
discovered the mouth of La Plata it was believed that he had 
discovered the entrance to this strait. (Pigafetta, Voyage 
of Magellan, p. 48.) The same theory is upheld by 
Schoener on his globe of 1520, in which the strait is placed 
in about 45° S., and is made to divide the Terra Nova 
from another continent named /Brasilia Inferior. The 
Genoese pilot who recounts the voyage tells us that Magellan 
successively entered the Rio de ia Plata and the Bay of St. 
Matthias, in the expectation of finding an entrance to the 
strait. And when the strait was actually found, it was 
assumed that the land which lay to the south of it was a part 
of the Terra Australis. An inscription on a map entitled 
Brasilia et Peruvia in the Speculum Orbis shows how 
confused were the ideas of geographers on the subject 
of the Terra Australis; it runs: — " Chaesdia seu Australis 
Terra quam nautarum vulgus Tierra di Fuego vocant alii 
Psittacorum Terram." This error was not removed until 
Drake, in his voyage round the world, was driven to fully 
57° S. in September, 1578, when he found that the two 
oceans united, and that islands (5nly lay to the south of 
Magellan's Strait. The assumed continuity of the Tierra del 
Fuego with the Terra Australis would induce the ascription of 
the discovery of the latter to Magellan. This was <1 > i ■ by 
Mercator, Ortelius, and others, for they inscribe on their 
Terra Australis the words : — " Hanc continentem australem 
nonulli MagoUanicara regionem ab ejus inventore nuncupant." 

The Terra del Fuego of Mercator and Ortelius is perhaps 
a misplace4 portion of the mainUnd of America, At least 



22 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 

there is a coincidence of nomenclature suggestive of some 
such misplacement. A Cabo Deseado, correctly placed at 
the western entrance of the straits, is also to be found on the 
Hydrographie Portvgaise near the Gulf of Paria ; Golfo di 
San Sebastiano has a synonym in the Porto de San Sebastiano 
applied to Rio de Janeiro by Diego Ribero (1527) and the 
author of the Hydrograjjhie. 

Let me recapitulate. The Terra Australis of Mercator 
consists of the following elements : — 

(1.) The outhne from about 130° E. of Boavista to 
Cabo di bon Signale in 290° E. This portion includes 
Nova Guinea, and corresponds with the Ter. australis 
incognita of Cornelis de Jode and the Jave la Grande of the 
French MS. charts. It is based upon charts of America 
from the Gulf of Honduras to the Straits of Magellan. 

(2.) The outline from C. di bon Signale to Ysole do 
Cressalina and Golfo di San Sebastiano ; possibly another 
misplaced portion of the American continent. 

(3.) The outhne from Golfo di San Sebastiano to the 
Promontorium Terrae AustraHs ; in part purely C(jnjectural, 
in part representing Vespucci's discovery of land beyond 
52° S. 

(4.) The outline from the Promontorium Terrae Australis 
to the point of commencement ; in part representing Cabral's 
discovery of Brazil under the name Terra Psittacorum, in 
part purely conjectural. 

The results of the whole investigation may be thus sum- 
marised : — The theory of an antipodal continent arose as a con- 
sequence of a belief in the sphericity of the earth. It was 
strengthened by the conceptions of Marinus and Ptolemy 
regarding the configuration of the Afi'ican continent, and in 
this aspect held a place in the system of the Arabs. After a 
long lapse of time, during which geography was not a science 
but a body of dogmas, the theory was revived amongst 

in consequence of the new discoveries of the 



16th century ; and these were erroneously located in a 
position analogous to that previously assigned to the anti- 
podal continent. This is to be first observed on maps 
ascribed to Leonardo da Vinci about 1514, on a mappe- 
monde by La Salle, in La Salade nouvellement imprimee, 
1522, and, with evident reference to American discovery, 
in the Mapperaonde of Fine, 1531. Mercator finally for- 
mulates the theory in 1669, having previously indicated 



ANTIPODAL SOUTHERN CONTINENT. 23 

his opinions in his map of the world of 1538 in the words 
placed on the Antarctic continent to the south of Magel- 
lan's Straits : — " Terras hue esse certum est, sed quantas 
quibnsq ; limitibus finitas incertum," The theory thus pro- 
pounded receives sanction from many (juarters, especially 
from the Memorials of De Quiros and of Jean Paulmier. 
Here I must close this investigation for the present. If 
any proof were required of the complete absence of all con- 
nection between the theory of a Terra Australis and the 
geographical fact of the Australian continent, it would surely 
be found herein — that the belief in the former persisted for a 
hundred years after Australia was visited and mapped by 
Dutch navigators. And yet to this day a confusion exists 
between these distinct phenomena, which blurs the out- 
lines of early Australian history. That history may be 
compared to the history of three streams which have 
their source in an unknown and half mythical country. 
There is the stream of Portuguese ascendancy in the East. 
That stream undergoes changes in the end of the sixteenth 
century, and from being Portuguese becomes first Spanish 
then Dutch. Then there is the stream of Spanish conquest 
passing through Spanish America. A Cortes saw it flow, 
unwitting whither it went, a De Quiros sailed over its waters, 
but they bore him to no certain haven. Lastly, there was the 
French stream, romantic in its origin and flow, its waters 
liberated at the touch of a native of the mythical land, dis- 
closed to the world's view })y his descendant after three genera- 
tions of silence, and only disappearing, late in time, on the 
borderland of English enterprise and colonisation. To trace 
the course of these parent streams, and to discriminate them 
from their tributary waters is the task of the man who would 
map out the various origins of the history of Australia. 



WILLIAM Thomas strutt, 

GOVERNMENT PRINTER, TASMANIA. 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

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